Student and professional a capella groups perform at Nordonia Aca Fest
by Nancy Vondrak
The halls of Nordonia High School were rockin’ during the weekend of Feb. 18-19 as the host site of Aca Fest, Nordonia’s annual music festival. The festival offers high school a capella choral groups from around the country a chance to perfect their vocal skills and experience outstanding performances, culminating in a public concert by a nationally-known group. Aca Fest is sponsored by the Nordonia High School Choral Department and Choir Director John Pickering.
Aca Fest was started in 2011 when Pickering came to Nordonia High School and introduced a cappella singing to the choral program. The event has evolved into two full days of vocal clinics, select student group performances, and a headliner concert.
This year’s Aca Fest participants included 23 different vocal groups representing 16 different schools from Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin, as well as various cities and suburbs throughout Ohio.
Each day of the festival, students attended workshops and clinics that highlighted various vocal skills and techniques. Almost 400 students took workshops such as rhythm section, vocal percussion, vocal electronica and improvisation over the course of two days.
Pickering explained that while students from the visiting schools attended the clinics, Nordonia’s student singers were busy acting as hosts and working the festival to ensure that things ran smoothly.
“Other schools get individual clinics with musicians at the fest. Our students don’t because they are hosting and giving back,” he said. “They work extremely hard both performing and also hosting that day. We view it as service to music, other schools and music education in general.”
Each night of the festival featured a student group performance, before a nationally known headlining a capella group hit the stage. The Filharmonic was this year’s featured headliner and performed on Saturday. The five-member Filipino-American vocal group achieved fame from their appearances on NBC’s “The Sing Off” and the movie “Pitch Perfect 2.”
Nordonia’s four a cappella groups hade the honor of being the only student musicians to open for The Filharmonic’s Saturday concert. Those groups included Genesis, which is comprised of fifth- and sixth-graders from Lee Eaton Elementary School; Knight Rhythm from Nordonia Middle School; and two groups from Nordonia High School, Momentum and Synergy.
This was The Filharmonic’s second year at Nordonia’s Aca Fest. Pickering said, “They really like coming here. The group speaks very highly of our students and our boosters. The five guys in The Filharmonic are also great teachers and great clinicians.”
A lot is in store for Nordonia’s a cappella student singers as plans are already underway for next year’s Aca Fest Feb. 17-18, 2023. Both the high school and the middle school a cappella groups will be recording a CD in the near future, which should be available on iTunes in late May 2022. ∞
